BURNING LAND. 



XCI. BURNING LAND. 



The burning of the soil is a process somewhat different from 

 that of paring and burning, and, properly speaking, for different 

 objects, though the latter process tends in some degree to the 

 same end. No operation in husbandry, which I have seen this 

 side of the water, surprised me so much as this. Of its expe 

 diency, or rather of its remunerative character, I must leave 

 others to judge. In the last particular, the difference between 

 two dollars a week for labor without board, and three dollars a 

 week with board, will be found material. In either case, it will 

 be found that there are few operations more expensive. 



The question which an English farmer, or improver of land, 

 often proposes to himself, is very different from what an Ameri 

 can farmer in similar circumstances would propose to himself. 

 The price of land in England is often most exorbitant, 60 

 sterling, or 300 dollars, per acre, being frequently paid for large 

 farms, and, not seldom, much more than that. The annual 

 rents paid in Great Britain for extensive farms would, in some 



lastly, by the production of alkaline and earthy salts, which are familiarly known to 

 exert a most beneficial influence upon vegetation. These conditions seem so 

 entirely those, the object of which it is to realize by paring and burning, that, in or 

 der to make the operation favorable to the soil which undergoes it, the vegetable 

 matter which it has produced must of necessity be transformed into black ashes ; 

 when it goes beyond this, when the incineration is complete, and the residue pre 

 sents itself as a red ash, the soil may be struck with perfect barrenness for the fu 

 ture. The burning, therefore, that was not properly managed, that led to the com 

 plete incineration of all the organic matter, would, for the same reason, have a very 

 bad effect in the preparation of the Picardy ashes ; which might, indeed, act in 

 the same way as turf ashes from the hearth and oven, but which, deprived of all 

 azotized principles, would not ameliorate the ground in the manner of organic 

 manures.&quot; 



&quot;I have frequently seen the process of burning performed in the steppes of 

 Southern America. Fire is set to the pastures after the grass which covers 

 them has become dry and woody ; the flame spreads with inconceivable rapidity, 

 and to immense distances. The earth becomes charred and black ; the combus 

 tion of those parts that are nearest to the surface, however, is never complete ; 

 and a few days after the passage of the flame, a fresh and vigorous vegetation is 

 seen sprouting through the blackened soil, so that in a few weeks the scene of 

 the desolation by fire becomes changed into a rich and verdant meadow.&quot; 

 Rural Economy, p. 374. 



